Biggest Beast Once Roamed Antarctica

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The sauropod family includes some of the largest terrestrial
vertebrates that ever existed -- giant, lumbering beasts weighing
tens or even hundreds of tons. And they lived everywhere but
Antarctica, paleontologists thought -- until now.

Argentinean researchers have just uncovered the Antarctic remains
of a titanosaur, a plant-eating, sauropod dinosaur that remains
one of the largest creatures to ever plod the surface of the
planet.

Despite the enormous size of the creatures, the evidence was
remarkably small: Just a section of vertebrae barely 7.5 inches
long believed to have come from the middle third of the
dinosaur's tail.

"These sauropod dinosaur remains from Antarctica improves our
current knowledge of the dinosaurian faunas during the Late
Cretaceous on this continent," said Ignacio Alejandro Cerda from
Argentinan science foundation CONICET, who
was part of the team that discovered the remains of the
"lithostrotian titanosaur." The giant beast lumbered around
approximately 70 million years ago, according to a report in
the Daily Mail.

The specific size and morphology of the specimen, including its
distinctive ball and socket articulations, lead the authors to
identify it as an advanced titanosaur.

Other important dinosaur discoveries have been made in Antarctica
in the last two decades -- principally in the James Ross Basin
where this bit of bone was found, the scientists noted.

These titanosaurs originated during the Early Cretaceous and were
the predominant group of sauropod dinosaurs until the extinction
of all non-bird beasts at the end of the Cretaceous. Although
they were one of the most widespread and successful species of
sauropod dinosaurs, their origin and dispersion are not
completely understood.

Their research has just been published online in Springer's
journal, Naturwissenschaften -- The Science of Nature